Organisations as Soap Opera: Leading Change and Continuity through Narrative-based Organisation Development

Leadership is often challenged to provide a sense of continuity in spite of disruptive changes caused by strategic (managed) and external (un managed) processes. The authors reflect on their experience as organisation development consultants to a multinational merger and integration of three companies – part of a 15-year series of industry re-structuring. The authors focus on one intervention, showing how the situation displayed characteristics common in TV serials (soap operas). The authors describe an intervention informed by this analysis, offerings brief vignettes followed by a more extended explanation of how soap opera norms can be more widely applied to organisation and leader development.